Job Title: Data Platform Lead
Duration: Permanent
Package: Competitive Salary + car allowance + bonus
Location: Runcorn - 3 days per week & 2 days remote
About Phoenix Data, Analytics and Insight Team:
This is a transformative and exciting time to join the Phoenix Data, Analytics & Insight (DA&I) team.
We have made a significant investment in modernising our data capability, including the migration of our data estate onto Microsoft Fabric, and we are now entering the next phase of our journey: turning that modern data foundation into a platform that accelerates analytics, enables AI and supports the development of high-value data products across Phoenix UK.
Our ambition is to build a world-class Data & Analytics capability that harnesses the power of data, analytics and AI to create measurable value for the business.
We are building a high-performing, forward-thinking team using technologies including Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Python and AI to solve important business problems across pharmaceutical wholesaling, pharmacy, supply chain and our wider healthcare operations.
You will join a team where your ideas and technical leadership can genuinely influence how one of the UK's largest healthcare organisations uses data and AI.
About the Role:
As Data Platform Lead, you will own the technical evolution of Phoenix UK's modern data platform and lead the engineering capability responsible for making trusted, high-quality data available across the organisation.
With our migration to Microsoft Fabric now complete, the role is increasingly focused on what comes next: creating a scalable, resilient and AI-ready data platform capable of supporting advanced analytics, data products, automation and AI solutions.
You will be a senior technical leader within the DA&I team, setting engineering standards, shaping architecture and ensuring we make effective use of Microsoft Fabric and the wider Microsoft data ecosystem.
You will work closely with analytics, technology and business teams to move beyond traditional reporting and develop reusable, well-governed data assets and products that enable teams to solve business problems faster.
This is an opportunity to take ownership of a modern data platform at an important stage of its development and help define how Phoenix uses data and AI over the coming years.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own the technical strategy and roadmap for the Phoenix UK data platform, ensuring it continues to evolve in line with our Data & AI strategy and wider business ambitions.
- Lead the continued development and optimisation of our Microsoft Fabric platform, moving from migration and foundation-building towards a scalable platform for analytics, AI and data products.
- Lead and develop a high-performing team of data engineers and data management specialists, creating a strong engineering culture focused on quality, simplicity, delivery and continuous improvement.
- Define and champion modern data engineering architecture, patterns and standards, ensuring solutions are scalable, reusable, secure, maintainable and cost-effective.
- Develop the platform and data architecture required to support AI and machine learning use cases, ensuring high-quality, accessible and appropriately governed data is available for AI solutions.
- Enable the development of reusable data products and trusted data assets, working with business and analytical teams to create consistent, well-defined sources of data for key business domains.
- Drive improvements across data ingestion, transformation, orchestration, storage and serving layers, continually improving platform performance, reliability and cost efficiency.
- Establish strong engineering practices including testing, monitoring, documentation, version control, CI/CD and automated deployment.
- Work closely with analytics and BI teams to ensure our data platform provides performant and trusted foundations for Power BI, semantic models and advanced analytics.
- Champion strong data architecture, modelling and data management practices, ensuring critical business data is well structured, understood and trusted.
- Work alongside colleagues responsible for data governance and business stakeholders to improve data quality, ownership, lineage and metadata across Phoenix UK.
- Evaluate emerging capabilities within Microsoft Fabric, Azure and the wider AI ecosystem, identifying opportunities to improve the platform and accelerate value delivery.
- Act as a senior technical authority for data engineering and platform architecture, providing guidance, challenge and technical leadership across the DA&I team.
- Support the development and delivery of the wider Phoenix Data, Analytics & AI strategy as a senior member of the team.
What We’re Looking For:
We are looking for an experienced data engineering or platform leader who combines strong hands-on technical understanding with the ability to lead people and shape a modern enterprise data capability.
You will ideally have:
- Proven experience leading data engineering or data platform teams within a large, complex or fast-paced organisation.
- Strong experience designing, building and evolving modern cloud-based data platforms.
- Deep knowledge of the Microsoft data ecosystem, ideally including significant hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric.
- Strong understanding of Fabric capabilities such as Lakehouse, Data Warehouse, OneLake, pipelines and notebooks, and how these can be used to build scalable enterprise data solutions.
- Strong experience with SQL, Python and/or PySpark and modern data engineering approaches.
- Strong understanding of data architecture and data modelling, including designing reusable and scalable data structures.
- Experience implementing modern software and data engineering practices including Git, CI/CD, automated testing, monitoring and deployment.
- Experience designing platforms that support analytics, data science, machine learning or AI applications.
- A strong understanding of data governance, data quality, security and data management principles.
- The ability to translate business requirements into pragmatic technical solutions and explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong leadership skills and the ability to coach engineers, set technical direction and create a culture of engineering excellence.
- A curious and forward-looking mindset, with an interest in how emerging data and AI technologies can create value for the organisation.
What You'll Get
- Competitive salary
- 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing with length of service
- Performance related bonus scheme
- Car allowance
- Private healthcare
- Medicash – a health cash plan to support everyday healthcare costs (e.g. eyecare, prescriptions)
- Hybrid working
- A highly valued benefits package
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